Is Lex est Bardus
by Lady Briett
Summary: When the Ministry of Magic introduces a highly unpopular law designed to create more people under its rule, the muggleborns fight back.
1. Chapter 1

Percy Weasley had a forced smile on his face as he looked over the assembled crowd. Although he was still only the Minister's Assistant, a fact which he was quite annoyed at, Rufus had trusted him to give this Very Important Address, an Address that would Reform The British Wizarding World while the good minister was attending a symposium in Vietnam.

At this point, though, Percy "Weatherbee" almost wished he hadn't been delegated this Important Responsibly. Press releases had been given to some of the Prophet reporters who could be trusted to keep their mouths shut. In theory, notes should have been owled to every reporter, as the Prophet had been more-or-less under the Ministry's control since the then editor-in-chief Cindrae Rowle killed the son of then-minister Reoulf Dearborn in 1799. However, in recent years they had begun to struggle against the chains that had held them for so long, and some of the writers had even started to print _anti-Ministry statements!_ Percy himself was disgusted at their audacity, but he had been told in no uncertain terms that he was to leave the Centaur Liaison Office, the front for making sure England's finest magical newspaper stated only preapproved propaganda, alone.

Due to the aforementioned press releases, reporters had been hovering around the Ministry since it opened at nine. At first, Percy was happy to answer their questions, being the next-best thing to the Fudge himself, as the Senior Undersecretary was in St. Mungos due to a bad case of Red-Leg. The way they quickly scribbled down his replies on parchment made him feel very important. It was a nice feeling.

Soon, though, they started asking things which made him feel…very uncomfortable. Things like, "Don't you think some of Minister Fudge's constituents will leave due to this?" and "Is this even legal?" He had to make up something on the spot to get them to go away, and what he came up with was "I am not authorized to tell you that." Weatherbee knew they'd be suspicious considering what else he had said, but if they got beyond anything but notions he'd do a little off-the-job problem-fixing and bribe someone from Centaurs to take care of it.

As he saw the good purebloods in front of him, waiting to hear what he had to say, all his issues with the whole thing slowly melted away like a Popsicle during a hot summer day. Here he was, on the same stage countless Ministers and other important officials had given all sorts of talks and lectures, including the (in?)famous 1953 announcement by Albus Dumbledore that, following an agreement by every ICW Mugwump except that of Iran, Flying Carpets were illegal in all member states. This was also the stage where new ministers gave their victory speeches and were sworn in, and where old ministers gave speeches about how awesome the new minister was, even if during the entire campaign he had spent every last second extolling the virtues of himself and saying the person who eventually won was a greedy Dark-Lord wannabe who would eat your children for breakfast and your grandmother for dinner. So naturally Percy was very excited.

He cleared his throat, and began to speak. "Good witches and wizards of Great Britain, I thank you all for coming here today. Our numbers, as many of you may know, are dwindling. At one time, we had as many as 50,000 wizards amongst us. Now, the number is closer to 25,000. In London alone, which does have some magical families but is mostly muggle, there are 8 million people _alone_. If all of them took up arms, what would happen to us? Intelligence reports indicate that particular scenario is highly unlikely, but the precedent is still there. We need more wizards, and we need them _fast_. To deal with this, Minister Fudge, Senior Undersectary Delores Umbridge, several distinguished Wizengamot members and myself, have created a piece of legislature that shall resolve this problem. I now present to you: the Matrimonium Pactum Lex, a law that will make sure we have as many wizards in England as muggles have themselves!" At this statement, some of the more educated members of the audience frowned. Matrimonium Pactum Lex translated in Marriage Agreement Law, and with that sort of title…well, you could see fairly easily where this was going.

Percy paused for applause. There was none. Half of his brain, the power-hungry part, was screaming, "WHY AREN'T THEY APPLAUDING MY…ER…OUR BRILLIANCE?" The rational part of his brain told him that he hadn't given enough information. For once he listened to the rational part, so he continued. "In this new law, each of-age witch or wizard of reproduction age is required to marry another socially-appropriate witch or wizard, so th…" Whatever he was going to say was cut off by an angry pureblood, who yelled, "What about pre-existing betrothals and engagements and marriages! You can't break those up! I don't care what so-called authority you've got!"

Percy gave him another forced smile. "Of course, good sir, we will not break up marriages, betrothals, engagements, and other official relationship agreements, as this would not only break our laws but also the laws created by the Monarchy of England."

Actually, nobody involved in drafting the legislature really cared what the Monarchy of England, especially as a random Muggleborn plucked from the street had told Delores under Veritaserum that the current Monarch was a "corgi-loving old lady, although her army can do some pretty mighty things." Unfortunately for Fudge, said Muggleborn was Irish and Delores was not a big fan of those with dogs, magical or not.

Speaking of Mudbloods, the whole thing was designed to be un-fair to them. At first, Fudge suggested everyone 17+ and under -60 without children would have to participate, but some clever wrangling and judicious use of Imperio's on the part of one of those distinguished Wizengamot members, namely Lucius Malfoy, had gotten him to agree that only those single would be forced into marriage with an unknown. This appeared innocent enough your Joe Doe would be fooled; I mean, what sort of government would break up a loving, sanctimonious, bond between a witch and a wizard? In reality, though, it was for a much more nefarious purpose: subjugation of mud bloods and the poor. Most rich purebloods had arranged betrothals for their young children at an early age. Occasionally, a half-blood or muggle-born would create one of these for their son or daughter, and even, in very rare cases, a muggle who was related to a witch or wizard and had found out before age eleven their child was magical would create one with a known parent in the same situation.

However, it was generally only rich purebloods. Muggleborns and half-bloods with a muggle-born or muggle parent usually found the practice barbaric. The un-educated didn't want to fill out the forms. Sadly, in the Wizarding World the stereotype of those without being dumb often rang true. The Weasleys were a prime example. They weren't hated, per se, but most regarded them as "country bumpkins", even their neighbours, the Diggorys and the Fawcetts (Nobody had bothered to ask what a Lovegood thought in several hundred years). Some of them-Percy himself being a prime example-had worked to get out the rut they were in, but almost all were content with minor Ministry jobs with low pay.

And if there was anything more than muggles that people like Lucius Malfoy hated, it was the poor and the stupid. He had inherited a large fortune but due to shrewd investment skills managed to expand it twofold, and the common thought was that if one was wizard could do something, why couldn't all?

So the Ministry was looking forward to being able to force all the unmarried mud bloods and halfbloods into marriages with stupid purebloods without twelve knuts to their name and make them have children.


	2. Chapter 2

A reporter walked up. (He presumed it was a reporter, seeing as she was clutching a quill and parchment.)

"Will you, Percival Weasley, state for the nation when this new…law will take effect?", she asked, peering up at him through large blue eyes.

"Immediately, of course", he replied. "There are too few witches and wizards."

"But it takes away people's liberty!", she countered.

Percy admitted to himself she had a point, but he could not show that.

"Yes, that is true. But sometimes it is necessary to do that. Would you rather marriage or being in a muggle zoo? Or worse, a muggle museum, stuffed and in a glass case, and example of an extinct species? Do you? The time to act to now, before it is too late!", he answered, glowering at the reporter.

The crowd cheered. They liked his reply quite a bit.

Some random person called out of the crowd, "What newspaper hired _you_?"

"The Quibbler", she replied, smiling. "I'm Luna Lovegood."

Percy inwardly sighed. That girl-she was one of Ginny's friends and incredibly annoying. Why did her father let her out? Honestly, Lovegoods.

The crowd had the same sentiments, and started booing and jeering. She ran to the floo entrances, not wishing to defend herself, and was quickly gone.

"Now that that…rogue reporter is gone, we may continue. Although the first part of the plan will be started immediately, all of it will not be carried out until we see if the first part works."

Which it would. Head Hitwizard Ralph Rooney had been persuaded to their side-persuasion really should not have been needed, but it was anyways. Hitwizards were considered to usually be no different from the people they were fighting, except legal-er.

Percy himself was kind of scared of Rooney. They had been instructed to hunt down those who refused to, ah, participate in the programme.

After getting a sip of water, he continued. "The first part will only use the 17-31 sector of society. They are the youngest, fittest, part of our World, and most single as well. After that, the 32-40 group, and then 41-60, although we shouldn't have to use that part. Each marriage is required to have at least two children, the minimum needed to replace the population. More will be rewarded with a new class of medal. Any questions, folks?" He gave a charming smile.

Dolores had wanted five required children, but he had said it would 'create strain on the economy until the children grew up.' The real reason was that after his own childhood he disliked large families.

There were no questions. The crowd was composed mostly of purebloods and a few halfbloods, who all had been sent letters telling them. No one else yet knew.

"One last thing!", shouted Percy. Everyone turned to look. "Don't tell anyone about this, please. We want it to be a shock to England.", then he stepped down from the podium.

Right after that, people began to leave, hurrying through Floos and Apparating halfway across the country. Reporters stormed up to Percy.

On another day, he would have gladly talked to them, but he wanted to talk to Dolores, and besides, the Lovegood girl showing up made him uneasy. The only newspaper people that were supposed to be allowed in were Daily Prophet reporters of course, and ones from Y Proffwyd Daily and An Prophet Laethúla, the Welsh and Irish editions of The Daily Prophet, respectively, yet somehow a Quibbler-Quibbler! Reporter had gotten in, and who knew what other ruffians were hiding within the reporters? He quickly ran towards the lifts before they could catch up to him. It was perhaps a bit cowardly, he knew, but he didn't really care at the moment.

Finally, he was at the correct floor. Running out of the lift, he dashed to Dolores' office. She was probably sulking about not being allowed to go with 'her precious Cornie' to Vietnam, as the Minister had (rightly decided, in Percy's mind)not to bring her along as she would 'misrepresent the nation'.

Hearing his footsteps, she called out, "Well, Percy? Come to torment me in my misery?"

"No", he replied. "I've come to tell you the-ah-release of the knowledge of the program to the public is over, and…they like it." Perhaps 'like' was too strong a word, and perhaps the group of people that had been standing in the Atrium five minutes previous were not a good representation of 'the public', but Dolores wouldn't know that.

She smiled, which gave Percy chills. "Excelllleennnttt", she hissed-well she was trying to hiss, but it came out as more of a croak. "Soon, all the mud bloods will be married to one another, no longer allowed to pollute our pure blood, and they will be made to rejuvenate our country. Have the lists about who is going to be assigned to whom been drawn up yet?"

"Yes", he said, sighing dourly. "But I've just got a bad feeling now, though…what if Potter's right? We'll be seen as being on…on…You-Know-Who's side. That'd be bad."

Dolores laughed. "Oh, Percy, sweets, Potter won't be. Dead is dead. Would you like some tea?"


End file.
